


Nothing, everywhere

by towardsmorning



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Episode 33: Cassette, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-16
Updated: 2013-10-16
Packaged: 2017-12-29 14:34:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1006547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/towardsmorning/pseuds/towardsmorning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The room is empty.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing, everywhere

**Author's Note:**

> This is less a standard story and more an exercise in scene-setting, which I've been wanting to work on for a while; episode 33 seemed a good place to start, since it was _creepy as fuck._ Takes place directly after whatever the hell happened in the final tape. No doubt this'll get jossed at some point, but I did try to leave things at least somewhat open for interpretation, in spite of my own personal theories.

Cecil comes back to himself slowly, in bits and pieces- less like waking up and more like regaining his wits after being stunned, the world slowly and reluctantly coming into being around him. First he becomes aware of aware of a ringing in his ears, a sensation that seems to take up all his awareness, leaving no room for any other thought. Then he blinks and suddenly he can see, though nothing resolves itself into any shape that's recognisable enough to focus on.

Presently he finds that he can feel something hard underneath his back and Cecil realises that he must be laid out on the floor. Movement seems impossible for the moment. He leaves that be. Instead he continues to blink, slow and arrhythmic, until he can process that the pale blue shape above him is the ceiling and the deep red patch is a lampshade, the light turned off. Gradually it becomes less overwhelming to look at them and he can keep his eyes open entirely, rather than constantly blinking, the on-off on-off pattern making him dizzy even lying down.

He can feel what he thinks is his cane under one leg, which is reassuring. He can feel the hair strewn across his face. He can still feel the ringing in his ears; it seems to reverberate through his whole body, incessant and unchanging. He can feel a tightness that begins in his chest and seems to claw its way up into his throat, as though he's been torn open and then stitched inexpertly back together, none of the edges in quite the right place. He can't feel his lips when he tries and fails to prise them open to call out- they're entirely numb, foreign on his face. He can't feel his fingers, or his toes. He can't feel whether it's cold or warm or neither. He can't feel what was in- 

The thought slips away from him.

It's day. He thinks it's day- yes, it is day, when he turns his head to one side he can see as much out the window. The sky is clear and deep blue. But no matter how hard he tries, he can't recall if this was the case before... before... just before.

After a little while longer of slowly breathing in and out until he doesn't have to think about it anymore, turning his head this way and that and straining every muscle he can feel, he manages to make first one leg twitch and then the other. Gradually, he succeeds in dragging one arm across the floor to pull his cane towards him and then uses it to slowly push himself onto unsteady feet. The room spins, making him feel nauseous, and he regrets not waiting a little longer almost immediately, but at least itseems to startle his vision into clearing a little. The room comes into full focus around him after a second or two; nothing seems particularly out of the ordinary, at least to his eyes.

The room is empty.

It's full of furniture and him, and he doesn't expect anyone else to be around anyway, but the thought hammers itself through Cecil's brain more strongly than anything else since he regained his senses: the room feels entirely, profoundly empty. He looks around at the wooden floorboards, the slightly open window, the heavy oak table and the four chairs surrounding it, the old, battered cabinet. He looks down at his body, barely keeping itself upright and somehow strangely apart from him. He looks up into the mirror.

Some small part of his brain feels that it should be shattered or warped or vanished altogether or, or _something_ \- but it's just a mirror, small and undecorated and unobtrusive in every way. Whole. It reflects the room behind him precisely as he believes it to be. A thin white sheet is dangling from one corner, on the verge of falling off. If it wasn't straight in front of him Cecil doubts he'd have taken any notice of it.

His arm reaches out of its own accord and Cecil twitches the sheet so that the mirror is almost entirely covered. He lacks the energy to do it more thoroughly, or to wonder why he did so at all. The over-tight stretch of his chest feels worse now that Cecil has stood up and, belatedly, he realises that he ought to be checking himself over for injuries. Instead he collapses unsteadily into the nearest chair.

The urge to try and call out comes back, stronger, but Cecil knows instinctively that there isn't anyone to hear. It reminds him of when they'd moved house when he was a little kid, the way that just before they left everything had felt so cleared out and _waiting._ The room seems to be holding its breath. Cecil releases one he hadn't been aware of holding, slow and uncertain, as he looks around again, and then back down at himself. His hands are shaking. His chest hasn't improved. One of his legs, his good leg, is tapping a nervous rhythm out against the floor. There seems to be some thin veil between himself and whatever is making these things happen. Maybe lots of veils, he thinks dimly, or walls he can't get through. Thoughts keep sliding out of his head like water on glass, barely even visible in the first place, just snatches of _but where's-_ and _is that-_

Nobody seems to be anywhere, and there doesn't seem to be any 'that' to wonder about. Everything appears undisturbed.

The light streaming in through the window is glancing off the mirror and getting in his eyes. Cecil leans all his weight on his cane, which feels so much more solid than he does right now that it's a comfort, and again without quite understanding why, lurches over to finish covering it.

He avoids his own eyes in the corner that's uncovered as he does so, keeping his gaze down. On the floor is a tape recorder.

**Author's Note:**

> Title technically ganked from Passage by Vienna Teng. ("Now I am nothing, everywhere.")


End file.
